When choosing a facility for a loved one, “don’t just go by what you read. Go to the facility, walk around and look. And not during the regular working hours when everyone is at the facility. Go on the odd hours and on the weekend. That’s how you truly know how the facility is doing,” advises Kimberly Coleman, Administrator for Cassena Care of New Britain. “Because I am here during the day, staff is going to be on their best behavior. Just like your kids – when you are home they do well. So go on a weekend.” Do you see family members engaging with staff and staff with clients? “Look at the staffing and the quality measures. That’s where you can get a true picture.”

Coleman is very confident in her staff any time or day of the week.

“Cassena Care is special because we have a lot of employees who have truly dedicated their lives to taking care of our residents. There’s a lot of longevity – in some cases 27 to 36 years. They know the residents well. We’re experienced. It’s more than your home away from home; it’s your extended family,” she said.

The facility, formerly the James Andrews House at 66 Clinic Drive, was purchased by Cassena Care in November 2015. It is one of several Cassena Care locations along with Norwalk, Stamford and Woodbury, NY. The New Britain location has 90 beds and their short-term, sub-acute, and long-term rehabilitation and nursing services include physical, occupational and speech therapy, hospice, respite care and a major emphasis on wound care which makes up 25 to 30 percent of their patients.

To achieve this, they not only employ full time wound care nursing staff, but recently partnered with Vohra Wound Physicians Management, the nation’s largest physician group dedicated to providing expert wound care services to patients in post-acute clinical settings. This gives them direct access to the expertise gained from hundreds of physicians specializing in wound care management.

“Repeat clients become our family as well. They go home, but if they have to go back to the hospital they ask specifically to come back to Cassena,” said Coleman. “They know that when they walk through our door we know who they are, we know that they want to get back home again and we’ll do whatever is needed to get them back there.”

The average length of stay for a client is approximately 30 days.

“We may not be as pretty as some place down the street, but when you look at the levels of care and the outcomes for our patients, we’re right up there with anyone.”

While their outcome measures are impressive, they plan on dealing with the “pretty” too. Coleman said that in order to compete or exceed their competitors, they hope to have a major refurbishment inside the building within the year. But when asked what was the most important thing people needed to know, she responded, “That we really DO care. That will always be #1 to me.”

Where did this accent on caring come from? For Coleman, it comes from a very small town in Alabama where she grew up. Raised by her grandmother, she was taken to church “every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. That’s where my love [for people] came into play.” She initially wanted to go into Audiology, but during an internship at a skilled nursing facility, she found she was needed, “and I just knew that’s where I needed to be.”

Cassena Care accepts both Medicare and Medicaid patients. For admission information, contact Roseanna D’Anna at 860-225-8608 or go to cassenacare.com.